ABSTRACT
This chapter questions core assumptions of architectural education through an analysis of different objects and practices on construction sites in India's National Capital Region (NCR), it argues that construction sites are integral to architectural pedagogy and must be ethically integrated with it. I discuss objects such as wall drawings by laborers on unfinished architecture, processes of steel binding and concreting, and play on sites as provocations that question fundamental tenets of teaching architecture such as the individualism and expertise of the architect, modernist visions, and hierarchical caste-class relations within the production chain. Through autoethnography as a dominant caste, Indian woman architect-anthropologist on site, I also write against the universality and apolitical nature of representation and knowledge in EuroAmerican architectural theory and emphasize non-cognitive ways of learning. The chapter relies on data generated through ethnographic interviews and observations on the construction industry in New Delhi's National Capital Region in 2012 and 2013.
